folded his arms under his fat, bristly chin and went straight back to sleep. We tried to stop him getting to sleep by yelling at him for five minutes or more, but it only made our throats sore. I think he rather liked us shouting. It meant dinner was still fresh.
And then, there was nothing to think about but Hadrian.
There was rain later in the night, falling silently in the darkness. We licked the water off our faces, but after that it got very cold. We were shivering in our bonds. We sang some songs – old songs of London when London was still part of the world, which Val had taught us when we were little. Some of the songs had the old names of other towns outside -Glasgow, Tipperary, Norwich. Val had promised to show us them one day, but this was as far as either of us was going.
We'd just about dried off from the rain when the dew came down, and shortly after the Pig woke up.
It was just getting light. He pushed himself up to all fours on his hands and stretched. He walked across to look us over and grunted, as if he was saying something. He winked. He came right up and had a sniff. I was waiting for the crunch, but he was still full up, I guess. He turned and left as the sun came up and went to hide away in the shadows of the collapsed car park, where he made his den. He screamed before he settled, just to let anyone else know he was still there.
Later, I began to doze. I hadn't thought sleep was possible, but the longer you go without it, the stronger it becomes. Twice I was woken by the Pig screaming and roaring at some intruder. The third time there was a gurgling noise, then the sound of his jaws, wet. I glanced across but quickly looked away. And that was my brother Ben.
It was my third night in the halfman lands.
My arms and legs had been in the same position for so long they'd given up cramping. I couldn't even feel them. Cold meant nothing. But I was thirsty – so thirsty! My tongue had swelled up: it felt like a hot, dry toad sitting in my mouth. When the dew came down I sucked at my collar for moisture. Even so, when the sun came up I was glad. Isn't it strange? The bones of my brothers lay in bloody heaps on the crooked paving stones. The same fate was waiting for me. Everything had been lost, and inside I was so desolated and lonely that I knew I should never recover even if I lived. But I was still glad when the sun rose over the lip of the wall and fell on my skin and warmed me. I tipped my head back into the morning light and felt the heat on me and I thought it was beautiful after all.
Then the pain of warming began: the burns on my ankles and wrists, my swollen tongue, my cramped limbs. As the sun got higher, the Pig got up, snorting and farting and grumbling. He waggled his eyebrows and made a noise. It might have been, 'See ya!' Then he went off to hide under the rubble of the collapsed car park.
I remember Val saying how his father, in great pain during the last days of his life, would go to walk in Hyde Park to inspect the crops and enjoy the smell of the earth, the wind, the rain. I knew it was no good mourning my brothers, or Signy or Val. They were lost beyond my caring. I didn't want their bones to torture me. So, it may sound sick, but I tried instead to think about the world as it was, as it always will be – the world without me. The warm sun, the wind stirring the long, green banks of weeds, the birds flitting about grasses and flowers. They were goldfinches, I think, pretty little things.
But it was difficult, my mind was wandering. I began to see shapes: battle cars in the clouds, men coming through the grass, faces and forms hiding and dodging amongst the broken walls and sliding down the collapsed sections of roofing.
'Try not to turn your head.'
… Overhead the tiny dots of birds. What?
'Siggy?'
I was dreaming.
'…a friend.'
'Who's there?' I croaked. My voice was as dry as hot brick.
'Your sister sent me.' My heart leapt – but not for escape, not yet. 'I'm thirsty!' I begged.
'Quiet!' the voice hissed. There was a pause. I heard whoever it was tut. 'Hang on. And keep quiet. If that big piggy thing comes back, I'm going. OK?'
'OK.'
There was a rustle. I was so thirsty, but I tried not to turn my head to watch. It was a miracle already that anyone, or anything, had got so close to me without the Pig hearing. A thought I'd stopped thinking came into my head. Could I escape? Was it really possible?
Suddenly the face of a child was pushed into mine. It was a girl.
'Mmm… mmm…' she said. Her mouth was full. She tipped her head down to me and let a trickle of water fall on me. I felt it trickle down my face and licked at it. Water! And then I had another thought. My thoughts were like clean pebbles dropped into still water. The thought was: Giver of Life.
I opened my mouth and let it dribble in and I swallowed it.
Two, three times the little girl – she couldn't have been more than ten or eleven years old – came to me with a mouthful of water. By the third time I was beginning to notice some odd things about her. The thick down on her skin, for example. Just a little bit longer and thicker and you could have called it fur. And then I noticed something that almost made me jump out of my skin. Her face was right next to mine, watching me closely and quite without embarrassment, as if I was a dentist so close to her face.
Her eyes were slit, like a cat's.
'Ah!' I shouted, startled. She jumped and let the water fall down my front. At almost the same moment there was a horrendous squealing roar; the Pig had heard me. He came rushing through the brambles like a rhino. I saw her eyes swivel to one side before she darted off. I was certain I'd killed her.
As she vanished into the brambles, she stumbled but it looked to me in my delirium as if she was actually shrinking.
The Pig came storming up and shouted in my face. I thought that was it, he'll chomp me now. But he didn't seem to like his food dead until he was ready to eat it. He roared and yelled at me – worst breath you ever smelt – as if it was all my fault. Then he peered around this way and that before he stomped grumpily back to sleep under the car park.
I lay there and waited. The end of the day was on its way, dinner time for the Pig. I supposed the girl was dead now, but anyway, she was more likely to have been a dream. It was probably some other thing come to eat me. Let's face it, what on earth would bring an eleven-year-old girl out there? And even if she did, she couldn't possibly survive.
I'd just made up my mind it was an hallucination when I realised my chin was still wet from the water.
I looked around, but all I saw was a small tortoiseshell cat sitting on the masonry above me, licking its paws. It made me smile. How cats get everywhere, even here! The fact that it was tortoiseshell made me laugh, somehow. I wondered if it was waiting for the leftovers.
Half an hour later the girl came back.
'You keep quiet. I don't want to be chased again, it scares me,' she whispered close in my ear.
'Sorry.'
She sat still and watched me for about half a minute. Gradually her eyes half closed. I thought, what on earth is this?
'What are you going to do?' I asked.
'Oh…' It really sounded as if she'd forgotten. I was so taken by the sheer weirdness of it – the little girl in the middle of this evil place, her furry skin and odd eyes. Signy had sent her?
'How's my sister?' I begged.
'She'll live if you do,' said the girl. I could have groaned out loud. I mean, what a mess I was in and she was telling me it'd be my fault if Signy died.
The girl took out a small pot, hidden somewhere in her clothes. She unscrewed it, dipped her fingers in and smeared some onto my face. I sniffed; I licked. It was honey.
'Now then,' said the girl. 'This is what you do.'
She put her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear; it made me squirm, she was so close. When she'd done, I looked at her and I said, 'You must be joking!'
She shrugged. 'He can't go fast, you see. It's your only chance.' She smiled. She stuck her finger in the honey pot and licked thoughtfully.
